


how not to ask your friends out

by quantumducky



Category: Asagao Academy: Normal Boots Club
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Misunderstandings, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 19:24:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10928412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumducky/pseuds/quantumducky
Summary: For someone so good at giving speeches, Paul could be really bad at communicating in his personal life.





	how not to ask your friends out

**Author's Note:**

> its four in the morning take this thing which i'll probably die tomorrow as a consequence of writing tonight

    Paul had been acting a bit odd, not that anyone noticed.

    You couldn’t really blame them, though.  It wasn’t much of a step up from how he _normally_ acted.  The occasional friendly cheek kiss was par for the course.  If it was now happening to certain people on a near-daily basis, well, maybe he was in a very affectionate mood lately.  His friends had way more important things to think about than that, like playing video games and having really stupid arguments.  Sometimes both at once.

    For quite a while-- too long, really-- Nick and Josh didn’t even notice a difference, and they were the ones he was _doing_ it to.  Even so, they weren’t _completely_ oblivious in the way, for example, Paul himself would have been.  They had to figure it out eventually.

    They weren’t doing anything special, just hanging out in their room and talking about whatever.  Nick said something funny, but unfortunately no one remembered what it was, because in the next second Paul kissed him on the actual mouth.  Then Paul just went on with the conversation like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

    What.

    “No, stop,”  Nick interrupted.  “Back up, Paul, _what was that?”_  Not that he didn’t like it, but _where the fuck did that come from?_

    “What,”  Paul said, as if this were completely normal,  “am I not allowed to kiss my boyfriend?”

    _What._

    “...Back up even more,”  Nick said slowly.

    Paul gave him a look.  “Did you… not realize we were dating?”

    “No?  That’s not how… I mean, _what?_  Like, first of all, that shouldn’t be an _ambiguous thing?”_  Nick struggled for words to explain why it _doesn’t work like that._  Hadn’t Paul ever heard of, like… talking to people about things?  “Josh, tell him he’s being ridiculous.”  Unfortunately, Josh had already dissolved into giggles and was no help whatsoever.  There was a long pause in which they communicated entirely through facial expressions, Nick looking incredulous and upping the intensity every few seconds by raising his eyebrows further while Paul had a bit of a reality check in the face of his inability to believe this situation is even a thing that can happen to people.

    “So what you’re saying,”  said Paul, trying not to laugh at himself as he realized how his position sounded,  “is that if I want someone to date me… I have to actually _say that?”_

    “Yeah, pretty much.”  He paused for a moment, then returned the kiss he was given earlier.  “I’ll let you get away with it just this once.”  They smiled at each other, temporarily unaware of anything around them.  Sure, it was sort of a strange way for a relationship to start, but it’s not as if Nick hadn’t thought about it before.  It seemed pretty stupid now remembering that he thought about bringing it up but didn’t want to make things weird.  Nothing could have been weirder than this.

    Josh coughed awkwardly, reminding them he was still right there.  He’d stopped laughing at them.  “Should I… go?”  They probably wouldn’t want him third-wheeling this particular situation, and sitting off to the side by himself while his two best friends got all cute-couple-y without him wasn’t exactly his idea of a great time either.  He was having enough irrational worries that they wouldn’t want to hang out with him so much now as it was, and that definitely wouldn’t help.

    “What?”  Paul turned around quickly and stopped him from getting up with a hand on his arm.  “No, no, listen…”  He didn’t give Josh anything to actually listen to following that statement, though, just leaned over and gave him a quick smooch.  He didn’t seem to think any further explanation was required.

    Josh made slightly panicked eye contact with Nick.  “What are you- I mean, didn’t you just…?”

Paul gave him a look like he wasn’t making sense.  Then, as if it should have been clear all along, he said,  “Wait, you didn’t think I would just date _one_ of you, did you?”  The shadow of a thought crossed his face.  “I mean, unless you don’t want to…”

    The other two looked at each other again, finally understanding, and came to a silent consensus that _yes, obviously, that sounded like the best idea ever._

    “Of course we do,”  Josh assured him, making himself comfortable on the couch again.  “I literally cannot think of a thing that would be better than the thing you have suggested.”  From the way he was blushing, it wasn’t hyperbole.

    “I agree,”  said Nick, looking at him.  “In fact, I wish he’d come up with it sooner, _oh wait.”_  They turned to give Paul what could only be described as a _Look,_ complete with raised eyebrows.

    “Guys,”  Paul protested weakly.  He knew he deserved a Look, but that didn’t mean he wanted it.

    They kept it up for a few more seconds, then relented with a warning that it had better not happen again.  (“I… don’t think that’s going to be an issue, but okay?”)  Within ten minutes things had returned to more or less normal, if involving a good deal more cuddling.  No one could remember what they were talking about before, but it didn’t really matter.  It wasn’t as if any of them had known what they were talking about in the slightest to _begin_ with, after all.

“Hey, guys?”  Paul interjected during a lull in the conversation.

    “What?”

    He looked at them with a sappy smile.  “I love you.”  He’d said it before, but then they’d thought he meant platonically.  They weren’t so casual about it now.

    “Gross,”  Josh complained, voice cracking as he tried to sound unimpressed.

    “Love you too,”  Nick said, somewhat muffled.  This was due to the fact that he was hiding his face in Paul’s shoulder.

    Paul had to laugh a bit at their reactions.  To him, it was as natural as breathing, yet he still felt his face heat up like it was the first time.  Which, to be fair, it kind of was.  He leaned back and slipped an arm around each of his boyfriends (for real now), smiling.  Nothing could be better than this.

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is a self callout my gf didnt know i thought of her as my gf until i casually dropped it into conversation thinking she already knew. correna if ur reading this im sorry if i gave you a heart attack


End file.
